Five Firms Advise on Another Big Texas Shale Company Deal
Baker Botts, Wachtell, V&E, Akin Gump and Latham are all working on Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s pending $3.977 billion acquisition of Houston-based WildHorse Resource Development Corp. — the second big Texas shale deal announced this week.
October 30, 2018 at 04:31 PM
3 minute read
Five big firms with energy practices are working on Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s pending $3.977 billion acquisition of WildHorse Resource Development Corp.—the second large Texas shale deal announced this week.
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Baker Botts are representing Chesapeake, based in Oklahoma City, while Vinson & Elkins is advising Houston-based WildHorse. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is representing NGP Energy Capital Management, WildHorse's largest shareholder. And Latham & Watkins is representing The Carlyle Group, another investor in WildHorse, in the transaction.
On Tuesday, Chesapeake and WildHorse announced a definitive agreement calling for Chesapeake to acquire WildHorse for about $3.977 billion in cash and stock, including WildHorse's net debt of $930 million. Chesapeake is focused on discovering and developing unconventional oil and gas assets onshore in the United States, while WildHorse is an independent oil and gas company operating primarily in the Eagle Ford Shale and Austin Chalk in East Texas.
The announcement comes on the heels of another announcement involving a big oil and gas shale deal announced earlier this week. In that deal, Denbury Resources of Plano, Texas, plans to acquire Virginia-based Penn Virginia Corp., which operates in the Eagle Ford Shale in south Texas, for $1.7 billion.
In the Chesapeake-WildHorse deal, the boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction, but it is subject to shareholder approval, regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. The deal is expected to close during the first half of 2019.
At Chesapeake, James Webb, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, is working on the transaction with in-house assistance from Benjamin Russ, David Hershberger and Doug Nix.
The Baker Botts team for Chesapeake includes corporate partners Clint Rancher and Joshua Davidson, both of Houston; antitrust partner Thomas Fina of Washington, D.C.; tax partners Richard Husseini and Jon Lobb, both of Houston; Tamar Stanley of Washington, D.C.; finance partner Lyman Paden of Houston; employee benefits partner Gail Stewart of Houston; global projects partner Erin Hopkins of Houston; and environmental partner Scott Janoe of Houston.
Wachtell, also representing Chesapeake, did not immediately provide information on its deal team.
At V&E, the corporate team for WildHorse is led by Houston partners Steve Gill and Doug McWilliams. Others are tax partner Lina Dimachkieh of Houston; executive compensation/benefits partner David D'Alessandro of Dallas; environmental partner Larry Nettles of Houston; antitrust partners Hill Wellford and Billy Vigdor, both of Washington, D.C.; litigation partner Michael Holmes of Dallas; and appellate partner Jeremy Marwell of Washington, D.C.
Akin Gump's team for TGP is led by Houston partner John Goodgame, with assistance from tax partner Jocelyn Tau of Houston.
At Latham, Washington, D.C. -based partners David Dantzic, Patrick Shannon and Brandon Bortner are advising The Carlyle Group. The firm previously advised Carlyle in an investment by Carlyle Partners VI in WildHorse in 2017.
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